Target Says Hackers Used Stolen Vendor Credentials To Breach System

Two months since criminals first began stealing credit and debit card information via Target’s in-store payment system, the retailer is providing the first details on how the breach may have been made possible.

“The ongoing forensic investigation has indicated that the intruder stole a vendor’s credentials, which were used to access our system,” a Target spokeswoman told Reuters in a statement.

Krebs reports that an analysis of the malware used in the breach shows that the user account “Best1_user” and password “BackupU$r” were used to log in to a shared drive that had been set up by the hackers on Target’s internal network to collect all the stolen card information.

“That ‘Best1_user’ account name seems an odd one for the attackers to have picked at random, but there is a better explanation,” writes Krebs. “That username is the same one that gets installed with an IT management software suite called Performance Assurance for Microsoft Servers. This product, according to its maker — Houston, Texas base BMC Software — includes administrator-level user account called ‘Best1_user.'”